“The members of the Association of Abstaining Physicians, reject the use of spirituous liquors in every form, and particularly declare the use of alcohol at the sick-bed a scientific error of the saddest kind. In order to war against this abuse, they earnestly appeal to the officers having charge of funds for the sick, henceforth, under no circumstances, any longer to permit the prescription of wine, whisky and brandy for sick members; but to resist to the utmost, according to the right given them by the laws insuring the sick, the taking of spirituous liquors, under the false pretext that they have a curative and strengthening effect.”
Dr. Bleuler, Rheineau, Switzerland, says:—
“The treatment of chronic diseases with alcohol is contrary to our knowledge of the physiological effects of alcohol. There is no probability that its use will be beneficial, certainly its benefits have not been established. Often an injurious result is proved.
“It is not implied that there may not be some benefit in the use of alcohol in cases of sudden weakness with or without fever. But even in such cases the benefit is not demonstrated. At any rate, other remedies can with advantage be substituted for alcohol.
“The essential thing in the treatment of all alcoholic diseases, delirium tremens included, is total abstinence.
“The physiological effect of alcohol is that of a poison, whose use is to be limited to the utmost. Even the moderate use as now practiced is injurious.
“The customary beneficial results unquestionably depend chiefly on suggestion, and by making the patient believe falsely that the momentary subjective better feeling means actual improvement.
“Physicians share the blame of the present flood of alcoholism. They are, therefore, morally bound to remedy the evil. Only by means of personal abstinence can this be done.”
Dr. A. Frick, professor in Zurich, is a careful student and an influential writer on alcohol. His statements are weighty. This is his testimony:—
“In larger doses, alcohol is absolutely injurious in the treatment of acute fevers, especially in case of pneumonia, typhus and erysipelas. They first of all injure the general state of the patient, they cause delirium, or increase it if already existing, and, secondly, they injure most seriously the organs of digestion and interfere with proper nourishment; thus they have a weakening effect, instead of preventing weakness, which they are usually supposed to do. In case no alcohol is used, the convalescence is much more rapid. In no case has the benefit of treatment with alcohol been established. According to the view of the most eminent pharmacologists, the stimulating effect of alcohol consists simply in a local irritation of the mucous membrane of the stomach, similar to that produced by a mustard plaster.”